On the second day of his visit to Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hit out at his political rivals, saying that unlike them, he didn’t believe in indulging in votebank politics. “I am different, my nature is different. I do not work for votes or votebank politics. For me, the desh (country) is bigger than the dal (group), and therefore my priorities are not dictated by group politics,” he said, addressing a public meeting after inaugurating a ‘Pashu Arogya Mela (cattle health fair)’ and a set of toilet complexes named ‘Izzat Ghar’ in the Dalit-dominated village of Shahanshahpur, 25 km from Varanasi. He thanked the gathering of people, assembled from villages across eastern UP, for coming from “far-off lands”. Sounding the development poll bugle for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Modi also lauded UP CM Yogi Adityanath for his work in “transforming UP in six months”. Modi and Adityanath were distracted on stage when a crowd behind the media enclosure erupted into slogans - “hamari maange poori karo (meet our demands)”. Police and BJP workers desperately tried hushing them. After they calmed down for a while, another set of people shouted slogans, just when Modi began his speech. Two women walked up to the last barricade and shouted out their demand for a separate state of Purvanchal, before police whisked them away. A group of shikshamitras (auxiliary teaching staff), protesting against the SC ruling denotifying shikshamitras in primary schools, were also whisked away. Additional police teams were called to the venue towards the end of Modi’s speech. Addressing the crowd, Modi assured homes for the homeless, both in villages and cities, by 2022 under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana. He said, “I have taken up the responsibility of providing all the homeless of the country with houses by 2022. It will be a difficult task, but if Modi won’t take up a difficult task, then who will?” Stating that governance should not be politically coloured, he said earnings of farmers and agricultural workers would double by 2022 and the animal health centre he visited earlier in the day at Shahjahanpur would help cattle. After the PM’s speech, hundreds of shikshamitras blocked the main road to Varanasi and police detained some of them.
